Sums up the evening quite well. Courtesy of The Daily What.

Mallory and I had a grand old time watching the 2009 VMA’s last night.  We tried to avoid it LIVE but we were sucked in by Kanye’s and Gaga’s ridiculousness. Plus Mad Men and Bridezillas wasn’t doing it for us. So we watched despite our initial protests, we watched despite the fact that we felt super old the entire time and yearned for the past where actual (and good!) music videos played on MTV. Gosh, we even watched most of the encore.

Here are some excerpts of our evening. Warning: Looong, but funny!

On host, Russell Brand:

Mallory: russell brand is also word vomit

Marcy: mallory why is russell brand hosting again

Mallory: i want to drench him in soap. non-sexually.

Marcy: didnt he get like horrible reviews when he hosted the first time

Mallory: yes!!! he offended EVERYONE

Mallory: stfu Russell. he’s the only englishman who’s accent isn’t sexy.

Marcy: oh gosh now hes taking credit for obama

Mallory: russell brand is “british” he didn’t vote

Marcy: hes so fucking loud and obnoxious

 he makes millions of dollars Mallory. millions.

Mallory: life is so unfair

Kanye interrupts Taylor's moment. Courtesy of the NY Daily News.

On Kanye’s diss of Taylor Swift:

Marcy: yo taylor im really happy for u

Mallory: hahahaha

what an asshole. he just lost his 13-year-old girl audience.

Marcy: kanye made a big mistake messing with taylor swift. what ive learned since following gloriana (who’s her opening act) shes made up of like fairie dust and balloons. everyone loves her.

Skip Madonna’s tribute to Madonna (and MJ). Just watch the great tribute by Janet to her brother above.

On Madonna’s “eulogy” before Michael Jackson tribute:

Marcy: im blocking her out. oh gosh she sucks, i cant block her out. she sucks too much

Mallory: they were born on the same day? she lies

Marcy: why is she talking about herself? oh gosh this is horrible

Mallory: so stupid

Marcy: shut it madonna

Mallory: she should’ve stopped at “michael jacksom”

Marcy: just shut it

Mallory: blah blah no one cares

sing celebration

show us your freakish arms

Marcy: they shouldve just shown the tribute

no madonna bs

omg shes still talking

Mallory: this sounds like his wikipedia article

Marcy: hahahaha except facts about herself are thrown in cause shes so awesome

SHUT UP

Mallory: omg

Marcy: omg SHUT UP

Mallory: she tried to have sex with him

Marcy: omg WHY IS SHE STILL TALKING? i feel like she thinks shes brooke shields at his memorial service

Mallory: hahahha yes!

Marcy: WTF is she saying? i hope janet jackson finds her and beats her up

Mallory: then why didn’t you guys do a song together? the 80s would’ve exploded

Marcy: u fell out of touch cause ure a bitch. just guessing

Mallory: yup

Marcy: this is so backfiring on her

horrid omg please shut up

Mallory: madonna, remmeber when you dated a-rod?

Marcy: im going to start crying if u dont stop

please stop

Mallory: remember when you had freakish arms?

Marcy: im also going to start puking

Mallory: madonna has the internet?

Marcy: omg mallory shes not done YET

omg omg omg

omg this vma crowd claps for anything

Mallory: EXCEPT kanye

Marcy: haha yes

Mallory: blah blah blah

 she is so lucky kanye came on

finnnnnnnnnnnnnnnallly

Marcy: that was the longest speech ever cause it sucked

Mallory: unwarranted and insipid

Marcy: luckily the tribute didnt suck

Mallory: that’s b/c no one else spoke

Lady Gaga is gaga. Courtesy of Just Jared.

On the saga of Lady Gaga:

Mallory: omg poker face

the blood

Marcy: im scared to watch this

what does blood have to do with poker face

Mallory: why is this so dramatic

Marcy: makes no sense

Mallory: oh i get it

phantom of the opera

fallen chandieler

 no i want poker face

sing that

this song is not good without alexander

 it has no use

Marcy: hahaha i know

Mallory: random wheelchair

what’s with the cane? huh?

Marcy: my mouth is open throughout this whole thing

i think puke is ready to come out

Mallory: hahahhahahaha she’s playing piano

Marcy: omg most random ever

Mallory: omg flood!!! blood!!! wtf! did the piano stab her?

Marcy: yes

Mallory: wtf!!!

Marcy: ew. ugh. whatever.

Mallory: omg is this a jesus thing?

Marcy: im super confused

Mallory: with the lights and shit

Marcy: and disgusted

When she accepted her award from Eminem & Tracy Morgan:

Mallory: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA

 WTF IS SHE WEARING

 OMGGGGGGG

Marcy: OMG OMG OMG

Mallory: LAUGHING SO HARD

 Marcy: SO MUCH LAUGHTER

Mallory: CAPS LOCK

Marcy: OMG OMG

Mallory: AHHHHHHH HOLY SHIT

Marcy: WTF WTF

Mallory: WHERE IS HER FACE?!??!!

Marcy: hahahahahahahahahaha gaga dont wear an outfit u cant control

Mallory: i love how she said she loves her fans and they showed some gay dude

btw kermit was her date

Marcy:  i cant believe she got to make out with alexander skarsgard

my goodness

Mallory: life is not fair

Random:

Mallory: Marcy

 i have one main concern

 where is the new moon trailer?

——————————————-

Mallory: where’s jayz and new moon? wtf i was promised all this stuff

Marcy: hahahahahahahahaha wait vma lady is saying stuff. 7 min? what? this isnt over???

Mallory: what

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhghhhhhh

Marcy: i feel like throwing up

Mallory: this is such shit

Marcy: why has the vmas made me feel so nauseated

——————————————

Marcy: when is this show over over over over

omg i thought this show was over after jayz

Mallory: my heart is now full

of stupid

and it’s not over? how is not over?

Marcy: its never going to be over

and im too lazy to get up and get the remote

The End.

PS: Check out Metro NY’s great article on how Janet Jackson’s tribute to her brother was also a tribute to the end of  MTV being an actual music television station.

PPS: Kanye’s lame apology to Taylor. And in case you haven’t seen it, though I doubt that’s possible, watch the incident.

PPSS: Please don’t send us angry comments about how we “insulted” Lady Gaga & Madonna. We hope that most of our readers realize at this point, we just have good fun mocking stuff.

Nome, Alaska may not be an alien hub but it sure looks interesting nonetheless.

Photo by ra64 on Flickr.

Mallory and I were quite surprised with all the reaction we got from our “Milla Jovovich is a liar” post on the movie The Fourth Kind. So much so we decided to do an update.

First off, we’d like to clear some things up (if you didn’t already get them from the first post):

• Yes, we did do our research (and not just on a blackberry)
• No, we did not mean any ill-will or malice toward Milla Jovovich by calling her a liar.

Secondly, here are some great links to help the confusion over the questions, “Does Nome, Alaska have alien abductions?” and “Is there really a Dr. Tyler?”

The Fourth Kind Hype: Will You Believe It?

‘Fact based’ film purports to prove alien abductions in Nome

Some interesting answers at Yahoo! to these questions

Chapman University’s Connection to “The Fourth Kind”

Thanks to shopper, who left us these links in his/her comment- these have information on some of the murders/disappearances in Nome.  But no abductions.

Unsolved cases in Nome attract FBI

Local Catholic Diocese & Schools Respond to Stapleton Murders

BTW, Adrian, who left us a comment, made a great point- maybe Dr. Tyler does exist but they changed her name for her protection (hence why her picture is blurred in the trailer). However, judging from the information we’ve seen on the matter, I still think it’s all a marketing ploy.

Finally- let us know your own personal opinion on the matter.
View This Poll

Previously: Milla Jovovich is a liar

Yesterday, Gawker posted a stunning revelation: the movie is based on the football book of the same name by Michael Lewis, author of Moneyball. That’s where the title comes from – football!

Here’s a description of the book from Amazon:

The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. As he did so memorably for baseball in Moneyball, Lewis takes a statistical X-ray of the hidden substructure of football, outlining the invisible doings of unsung players that determine the outcome more than the showy exploits of point scorers. In his sketch of the gridiron arms race, first came the modern, meticulously choreographed passing offense, then the ferocious defensive pass rusher whose bone-crunching quarterback sacks demolished the best-laid passing game, and finally the rise of the left tackle—the offensive lineman tasked with protecting the quarterback from the pass rusher—whose presence is felt only through the game-deciding absence of said sacks.

Is Sandy going to sack the quarterback? Where’s the Texas mom in this? Oh wait, we still have more description to go…

A rare creature combining 300 pounds of bulk with “the body control of a ballerina,” the anonymous left tackle, Lewis notes, is now often a team’s highest-paid player. Lewis fleshes this out with the colorful saga of left tackle prodigy Michael Oher. An intermittently homeless Memphis ghetto kid taken in by a rich white family and a Christian high school, Oher’s preternatural size and agility soon has every college coach in the country courting him obsequiously. Combining a tour de force of sports analysis with a piquant ethnography of the South’s pigskin mania, Lewis probes the fascinating question of whether football is a matter of brute force or subtle intellect. Photos. (Oct.)

Ah, there it is. Except…Memphis? More Hollywood liberties, I assume. Because Michael Oher (aka “Big Mike”) definitely went through all of this in Memphis.

Besides, my main beef with the trailer is football isn’t mentioned until about two minutes in. TWO MINUTES! And they use “How to Save a Life” by the Fray, just in case you didn’t get the point, which is Sandra Bullock is going to save this kid’s life and it’s going to warm your cold, cold heart. Not football. What football? Left tackle? Who’s that?

That said, I can’t wait to watch this on Lifetime.

The Ballad of Big Mike [NY Times]
Sandra Bullock Adaptation Of Michael Lewis’ Blind Side Looks Heartwarmingly Awful [Gawker]
The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game [Amazon]

Rory Gilmore and Matt Saracen graduate. From Fox Searchlight.

Post-Grad, starring Alexis Bledel, opened last weekend to poor reviews and tanked at the box office. In the film’s defense, the Quarterlife Crisis is a hard sell: Reality Bites and Garden State were cult hits, Kevin Williamson’s Wasteland was canceled after three episodes and the internet/NBC series Quarterlife barely made it off the internet. As a current Quarterlifer, I’m not interested in ever seeing any of the above mentioned and here’s why.

Reality Bites was released in 1994.

The “Quarterlife Crisis” is a “new” phenomenon. The general directionlessness of the twentysomething years has been around forever. When I say “Quarterlife Crisis,” I mean the Post-Grad definition and how we use the term today: After a high-achieving college life, recent grads are disappointed and frustrated by the Real World. A lot of it is because school promises that if you get good grades, go to the right college and get a job, success abounds.

And let me tell you, that’s total bullshit. You just spent 22 years believing a bunch of lies. Now, get ready to believe a whole set of new ones.

Finding your niche takes a lot longer than 120 minutes. Movies and TV are a heightened reality, where all problems are solved and wrapped up in a tiny little box by the time the credits roll. The Quarterlife Crisis and directionlessness of one’s 20s can last anywhere from the day you graduate college until…well, some people never figure out what they want to do with their life. I’ve found that your 20s is a time for a lot of mistakes and a lot of throwing things against the wall to see what sticks – and for how long.

There are no easy fixes. Hollywood stories always conclude with the The Hero getting their Greatest Wish, be it a job, revenge, the perfect wedding or a kiss from their longtime crush.

But the Quarterlife Crisis isn’t just one problem – it’s an assload of complications, hangups, regrets, mistakes and disappointments. One simple thing couldn’t even begin to fix everything. Getting the guy doesn’t suddenly make you forget that your unemployment benefits just ran out. You got revenge on your biggest rival, but you still live at home with mom and dad. Getting the dream job doesn’t cut off all of your emotional baggage.

The Quarterlife Crisis isn’t just about getting the perfect job or apartment or love. It’s about accepting and finding a new reality that fits you. Everyone finds something different at the end.

Killing the crisis in Wanted. From Fandango.

It’s so embarassing. Mortification can be pretty entertaining (see: The Office, Parks and Recreation, the entire Teen Movie genre, Degrassi), but there’s just something kind of sad about being a twentysomething.

During your teens, you have all of your firsts and it’s cute. You go wild and crazy and political during college. In your 20s, you watch all the fun and happy hours drain out of your life while sitting in your cubicle. You could fill out that grad school application, but your 9-to-5 is already booked up with Gchat convos, online Scrabble and maybe a nap in the bathroom when the bosses are gone.

That would make a terrible movie. I don’t want to watch that, unless Angelina Jolie busts into your life and says you’re an assassin. And that brings me to my last point…

Here's to you...

The Quarterlife Crisis isn’t the story. Everyone goes through this in their 20s. It’s nothing new. Stop trying to make it something new and create a neologism or abbreviate into something cool (OMG! QuaCri! QC! Quartisis!). Everyone in their 20s is confused and unsettled and probably doesn’t have health insurance.

Yes, it’s there, but it shouldn’t be center stage – something more interesting should be the star instead. Something else needs to set the story apart. The Graduate had Mrs. Robinson. In Wanted, James McAvoy is clearly a QCer*, but Angelina Jolie and Morgan Freeman reveal he’s a kickass assassin with guns and car chases. Megan McCafferty’s Quartisis* novel Fourth Comings works because while the protagonist is going through her QC*, another dilemma – which deals with the series’ main love story – is the real focal point.

Conclusion: Why watch someone else’s QuaCri* when you can have your own? Except when the movie is really about something else.

* Yes, I realize none of those are ever going to happen.

Post-Grad [Official Site]
Quarterlife Crisis [Official Site...just kidding]
Mallory’s Guide to the Real World [Shameless self-promotion]

Balance houses and wind energy in Build-A-Lot 4

Literally. Power sources are the newest feature in the fourth Build-A-Lot game and it’s a new challenge to get used to. You can’t build too many houses at once or else there’s a blackout – you need more power!

The point-and-click, real estate-strategy concept of Build-A-Lot has stayed pretty much the same in every incarnation: You build houses and improve a neighborhood to meet certain goals. Houses have residents that pay rent and help up your income. Certain houses cost more money and materials, but also bring in more money. Painting houses increases the “appeal” of the neighborhood, while upgrades increase the value (and rent!). Recreational items, like tennis courts and parks, and stores increase the appeal of a neighborhood.

Now, you can also add Energy Savers to the houses. Unfortunately, it doesn’t increase the income of the house, but it does decrease the amount of power it uses. Power sources, like a wind farm, decrease the appeal of the neighborhood, so it takes a lot of planning to make sure you can counteract that with a tennis court or surround it with a bunch of pretty painted houses. The new, energy-conscious additions remind me a lot of NatGeo’s Plan It Green, which was basically an ultra Go-Green game following the Built-A-Lot formula.

Build-A-Lot always made real estate fun. Now, it’s making energy fun.

Buy the game or play the 60-minute free trial [Big Fish Games]

Is Milla Jovovich portraying a dead zombie?

UPDATE: Please see our latest post on this movie.

Last night when Mallory and I went to see District 9 we were treated to about a half hour of trailers. One of them was for a movie called The Fourth Kind, which neither of us had ever heard of before.

Let me first admit, it scared the crap out of me. Mostly because Milla Jovovich walked out of, like, some wooded area at the beginning of the trailer to tell us that she was portraying a real life person, Dr. Abigail Tyler, and that the movie is supported by real archival footage. The movie is about Milla aka Dr. Tyler treating all these patients in Nome, Alaska who keep having the same visions of a scary owl. Apparently all these people were abducted. Not sure if it was by the owl.

Anyhow, of course, on the way home on the subway, Mallory and I set forth to investigate how real this movie was. Well, mostly it was Mallory and her blackberry.What we found shocked us. Because we found nothing.

Basically, Mallory & her blackberry came up with nothing except that the term, the fourth kind, does exist. It’s part of a scale measurement established in 1972 to gauge alien encounters.

Milla Jovovich trying to trick us.

When I did my own research on the movie and realized that Milla Jovovich was lying, I was appalled. How dare she scare me like that? Apparently Nome, Alaska does exist but its residents are already like “WTF, these events have not occurred here” and of course, mysteriously, there is no record of a Dr. Abigail Tyler and alien abductions there AT ALL. So basically I was scammed by Milla and marketing.

When I informed Mallory, she was equally shocked.

me: oh btw nome alaska movie is a big ass FAKER, which u pretty much figured out yesterday

Mallory: hahahah really no info

why are they tarnishing a town’s name then?

me: yeah and app nome alaska residents are like wtf this hasnt happened here

Mallory: i smell another blog post

we must expose them

me: hahahaha

yeah i think we should

actually we should “review” all the latest trailers like surrogates- bruce willis, wax figure

zombieland- weird

the final destination- WHY

i think the nome alaska deserves its own post tho b/c how dare it scare me and be FAKE

if ure going to scare me at least exist

Mallory: yes! exactly!

i had a sneaking suspicion last night on the train that it might be fake but dude

me: we should’ve known it was fake as soon as milla jovovich came out and started with “i am actress…”

Mallory: i just figured it would have some kind of journal article or something behind it

hahahaha

that’s not a true statement either

LIES LIES ALL THESE LIES!

I realize this kind of marketing worked well for The Blair Witch Project, but that involved complete unknowns that people believed were lost in those woods. Also, they actually did a good job creating false information. If you googled it you turned up stuff, not zero information like The Fourth Kind.

You can check out the creepy trailer here. Just remember, Milla Jovovich is lying.

Workers workin' in My Kingdom for the Princess

What is this mess? My Kingdom for the Princess begins after a tornado leaves the kingdom in shambles and you’ve got to get Princess Helen back to her father. The point-and-click strategy game involves you and your little worker(s) cutting up fallen trees, fixing dilapidated roads and bridges, scaring away ghosts and renovating old buildings so the princess’ carriage can make it to the next stage.

Much like Nanny Mania, another clean-up game, tasks take different amounts of time and the order you build certain buildings and start processes all depends on your goals and what’s available to you. For example, if you know you have to remove a lot of boulders, build goldmines as soon as you can and make sure you have sources of food, since the process takes up a lot of both resources. This gets very challenging at later levels, where let’s say you can’t build a sawmill, but your goal is to have a 50 supply of wood. Uh oh. You better find a lot of trees.

Figuring out the order and priorities of each level is the most fun and frustrating part. The little workers, too, are a little frustrating because they can only handle one task at a time and must return home before being assigned another one. It’s worth the stress and the game keeps upping the ante. Just when you think you have the jungle figured out, you’re off to the desert, where workers are sluggish without a water well built. The game also anticipates your needs: Freebie food, lumber and gold appear on the map randomly and it’s a big relief when you need them.

If you finish the level before the narrator says, “Night is approaching,” you’ll be able to expand your castle and you’re not truly done with the game until you’ve built the entire castle. Bonuses, which are different at every level, help workers work or move faster, provide you with an extra worker or stop the clock for a few seconds and they are always needed. Believe me. Use them when you can, especially to fight nightfall.

Buy the game or download the free 60-minute trial [Big Fish Games]

"Peace" between humans and prawns

You’ve probably seen all the posters and billboards promoting District 9- “For Humans Only,” “No Aliens Allowed,” “You are not welcome here”- it gives you an idea of what the movie will be about- conflict between humans and aliens.

If you’re going to see the movie to see violence, special effects and human vs. alien battles, you’ll get that. And you’ll enjoy it. But District 9 is much more than that.

(BEWARE, Spoilers after the jump!)

District 9, shot in documentary style, is the story of Wikus Van Der Merwe. He is an agent with Multi-National United, a private company trying to control the alien population that is residing in a slum in Johannesburg called District 9. The aliens, referred to as “prawns” came to Earth almost 30 years ago but can not go back home, as their spaceship is inoperable.

Wikus has recently been given a promotion and is chosen to lead the task of moving all the prawns from District 9 to another intermement camp where the 1.9 million aliens will have even less space & freedom.

Wikus is a happy-go-lucky fellow who treats the eviction of the aliens in District 9 gleefully. There’s even a scene where he finds a prawn nesting area and sets about destroying the eggs. He takes joy in this and compares the sound that the dying eggs are making to popcorn popping.

Wikus tries to evict a prawn

Wikus is also not well equipped for the eviction job- he is very careless and touches everything he finds exciting- whether its an alien weapon or an alien device he manhandles which squirts black liquid all over his face.

This liquid is something that was procured by an alien named Christopher Johnson (obviously a name given to him by humans), who along with his friend and son are trying to make the mothership work again so they can go home.

Unfortunately for Wikus this liquid has side-effects and he finds himself transforming into the last thing he wants to become- a prawn. This is when Wikus’ journey truly starts- as he realizes the truth around him and finds the inhumaness of human beings.

Christopher Johnson and his son come into play again and at times you find yourself rooting for them more than Wikus himself. The CGI and special effects used for the prawns is amazing, especially the eyes. Even though he is an alien, you can see the thoughts and feelings behind Christopher’s eyes.

One of the best things about this movie is that it made its protaganist real. Wikus is at most times quite unlikeable, as he is trying to only help himself so that he could become human again, so that he could see his wife and get his reputation back. In the real world, most of us are not heroes, so it was refreshing to see a protaganist that had to work at it. And to accomplish that, he had to, ironically, become less than human.

Make sure you catch District 9 as soon as you can. You might not get what you are expecting, but you’ll come out of it loving what you got.

Ron Livingston could be Henry.

Via slashfilm, The Time Traveler’s Wife is set to become a television show.

It will be executive produced and written by Marta Kaufman aka co-creator of Friends and Veronica’s Closet.

Is Marta Kaufman changing gears into drama or is The Time Traveler’s Wife about to be turned into a light hearted sitcom?

Of course, Mallory and I had a discussion on this and it was quite insightful, might I say so myself.

Mallory: you should totally write one [blog entry] about the TTW series

me: yeah i just might- first off the person behind friends and veronica’s closet??

Mallory: omg they’re going to make it a comedy! WHHHYY?!?!

me: maybe theyll get ron livingston

Mallory: as henry

me: omg

Mallory: the bumbling librarian who time travels into weird situations

me: omg and sarah paulson as clare

Mallory: because she is like a fine whine

me: lol

Mallory: in complete sitcom fashion, she is all “HENRY! where have you BEEN?”

this shit writes itself

Will Mallory and I be right come time for TTW to debut as a TV show? Will it star Ron Livingston and Sarah Paulson in a quirky sitcom? Or will we be completely wrong and it won’t actually SUCK?

I have a feeling it may even go down the route of the Mr. & Mrs. Smith pilot. I recall everyone being over the moon excited about it being made and come fall, it was not even picked up.  And, afterall, time traveling shows have not been too successful so far (Journeyman, Life on Mars US, Daybreak).

Only time will tell.  Though you can bet we’ll be updating and having more insightful conversations about it.

Eggs, donuts and milk, oh my! It's Burger Shop 2.

I completely devoted myself to finishing the first Burger Shop, a time management game with all the right balance of upgrades, challenges, and risk for carpal tunnel. And now comes the inevitable sequel.

In Burger Shop 2, all your success in the first game is mysteriously wiped away, except the BurgerTron 2000 machine, which you buy back from a mysterious person. The game takes you on a path to rebuild your fallen restaurants, find out what went wrong and serve food to impatient customers quicky.

The fast-paced gameplay remains the same: left click to put together and prepare food items, right click to serve. The food items, though, have a lot more variety this time, mixing it up with breakfast, burgers and steak randomly in levels in way that reminds me of Stand O’Food. You’ll grill steak and chicken, serve up tomato and chicken soup, give menus to forgetful patrons and wake up to bacon and eggs. The best part of the game, like with most food service-themed time management titles, is seeing which new food dishes will appear on the menu next.

Like in the first game, locations change as you move up in the levels, but the scenery changes a little more, which is pretty cool. If you were addicted to the first Burger Shop, you’ll love Burger Shop 2 just as much.

Buy the game or download a free 60-minute trial [Big Fish Games]